The President of Portugal, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, has sparked a new controversy after commenting on the cleavage of a compatriot he met in the middle of the street during a visit to Canada.
“The daughter still has the flu. Have you seen the cleavage she’s wearing?” said the Portuguese president last Thursday to two Portuguese émigrés, mother and daughter, with whom he spoke in Toronto. The moment was recorded by public television.
“It wasn’t a sexist comment,” said de Sousa
Rebelo de Sousa himself has spoken out in this controversy: “It was not a sexist comment. It hadn’t occurred to me. Neither for the young woman nor for the old ladies. “It wasn’t sexist at all,” he replied to the question from the press.
“At the end of the walk through the Portuguese part of Montreal it started to rain, it was cold” and that is why he warned “several older ladies, one of them with white hair and others who were younger,” he explained this Sunday. “I’ve told several people, but apparently only one young woman was recorded: be careful, they still get constipated. “I was constipated,” he added.
Criticism of Rebelo de Sousa’s words came from various political parties, including the ruling Socialist Party (PS) and the right-wing extremist party ¡Basta!, the liberal Libre and the environmentalist People-Animals-Nature (PAN).
They ask you to apologize
The PS national secretary, Isabel Moreira, has called on the head of state to apologize. “We live in 2023. You don’t treat a woman you don’t know by making jokes about her weight.”. There is no joke about a snippet (…). And apologize. Sexism is killing us. “It’s not funny,” he said, according to the Portuguese newspaper Público.
“In the 21st century we need to see a normalization of these types of comments.”explained PAN MP Inês de Sousa Real, who asked the head of state to “emphasize the importance of not normalizing these comments.”
“We recently had the Rubiales case in Spain and the international community mobilized. We will not equate the severity of the two situations, but the truth is that we cannot forget that we live in a world in which domestic violence exists,” a fairly accentuated siege in which words often uttered without malice accompany behavior can legitimize other intentions,” he added.
The leader of “¡Basta!”, André Ventura, commented on Twitter that if it had been him who had uttered these sentences, there would have already been dozens of complaints “and I don’t know how many associations and observatories are in favor to defend gender equality.” “mobilized.
Other sexist controversies
Just a week ago, Rebelo de Sousa was involved in another controversy When a woman sat on a bench next to the president to take a photo and he asked her if “the bench can hold up?” in reference to his obesity. He had previously described Luis Rubiales’ kiss as a “small problem” compared to the war in Ukraine.